Wendy Beresford writes: When I first started training as an EFT Practitioner, I was amazed at how effective it was and how quickly I could get results on a variety of issues. After a while, however, I tried to apply the technique to uncover and release limiting subconscious beliefs that I felt may be holding me back in my everyday life. I quickly found that although I could identify some of my general behaviours or thought patterns that may need updating, I struggled to contact any feelings about them. Without feelings that I could give a rating to, I found I was only dealing with the symptoms of my issues rather than resolving them at the core.

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When working with clients, I was able to overcome any difficulty of contacting feelings by using my intuition and the guiding skills I learned and developed as a practitioner. Also, I believe that when two people tap together, they enter into an alternate state of consciousness similar to what you would experience in Hypnosis and this helps to bypass the conscious mind and make changes directly to the subconscious mind.

However, it is not always possible or desirable to use EFT with a practitioner or a supportive friend - you may simply want to use the transformative tool by yourself. If you are already familiar with tapping but you are having trouble contacting your feelings then try following this simple exercise:

• Have a pen and paper by you in case you need it later.
• Sit in a comfortable position and take a deep breath in, hold it for a moment, then let your breath out in a sigh to release any tension. Do this three times ensuring your stomach fills with air on the in breath and the air pushes out your stomach on the out breath.
• Allow yourself to breathe gently in and out through your nose for the rest of the exercise.
• Close your eyes and begin to make a video in your mind of what it is you want to achieve. See yourself in a future moment when you know you have achieved your goal (e.g. slim/non-smoker). Make the video big and colourful, fill in as much detail as possible - notice where you are, who you are with, what is being said and most importantly, notice how great you feel.
• Once you have created the basic video in your mind, use your thumb to tap on each finger point on the same hand – you can even use both thumbs at the same time so you are tapping in unison.
• As you tap on each point, begin to play the video of your success in your mind and become aware of any feelings of resistance along the way – notice any limiting thoughts, feelings or beliefs that may arise as or any memories that pop into your mind as you watch the video of your success. Jot down anything that you may wish to tap on later and give it a rating of disturbance (0-10).
• Once you have completed the visualisation and jotted down any aspects to work on later, play the video once more in your mind, from start to finish, focussing only on the positive feelings of success.
• Take three more deep breaths to finish.

You can then use basic tapping to work on each aspect that comes up, either on your own or with a Practitioner or friend.